Junta Watch
Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is welcomed by Tatarstan chief Rustam Minnikhanov at Kazan Airport.
By The Irrawaddy 16 July 2022
A humanitarian reward from a bunch of killers
Because the financial disaster in Sri Lanka deepens, Myanmar’s army regime has noticed a chance to bolster its poor picture. On Thursday, the regime’s Commerce Ministry held a gathering to debate shopping for 1,000 tonnes of rice with public funds and delivering it to the Sri Lankan folks as humanitarian assist.
With out being cynical, the regime’s file of committing horrible atrocities towards its personal civilians and intentionally blocking humanitarian provides to them makes it laborious to view its largesse towards Sri Lanka an act of humanity or sympathy for its folks.
Evidently, Min Aung Hlaing’s regime, which has been globally shunned, is clearly trying to take advantage of Sri Lanka’s disaster within the hope of acquiring recognition on the worldwide stage. It should be all too conscious that for the reason that coup it has acquired solely condemnation, and no invites from worldwide leaders, with the obtrusive exception of Russia.
In the meantime, Myanmar’s economic system is spiraling downward at such a fee that the United Nations Improvement Program initiatives 25 million folks—almost half of the nation’s inhabitants—will stay beneath the poverty line in 2023.
After creating a large humanitarian disaster in Myanmar that has to this point resulted within the deaths of 1000’s and the displacement of hundreds of thousands, Min Aung Hlaing should be deceiving himself if he nonetheless thinks he can salvage his title by sending some “humanitarian” provides to a rustic.
Junta protection minister visits resistance stronghold
On Wednesday, junta Protection Minister Common Mya Tun Oo arrived in Sagaing Area, a resistance stronghold in central Myanmar. His go to got here two days after native Individuals’s Protection Power (PDF) teams warned junta-appointed directors to depart their places of work inside 10 days.
In Sagaing, PDFs have taken management of most of the rural areas, with the parallel Nationwide Unity Authorities (NUG) changing the junta’s administrative mechanism with its personal in dozens of townships.
At a press convention in June, the NUG claimed that PDFs now management greater than 90 p.c of the principle roads in Sagaing and northern Magwe and over 80 p.c of rural areas.
Throughout his Sagaing go to, Mya Tun Oo met junta administrative officers and army personnel from native battalions in Hkamti, and in addition visited native monasteries in a bid to mobilize assist for the regime. It might be seen as a perverse alternative of venue to drum up assist; quite a lot of monasteries have been broken attributable to junta troops’ tactic of torching villages in Sagaing.
Just lately, feasts have been held on the order of Min Aung Hlaing at army items in Sagaing, in what the junta chief known as a show of fatherly spirit by commanders towards their troopers.
Killing unarmed folks and looting their belongings—absolutely not one thing any regular father would train his sons?
Lastly, Min Aung Hlaing finds a bunch to welcome him
They are saying an image is price a thousand phrases. And junta chief Min Aung Hlaing was the very image of pleasure as he was welcomed by Tatarstan “President” Rustam Minnikhanov through the coup chief’s “private” go to to Russia on Wednesday.
The truth that he was not acquired by the Russian protection minister, not to mention Russian President Vladimir Putin, on his second go to to Russia—the one nation he has been in a position to go to for the reason that coup—possible defined the broad smile on his face.
Min Aung Hlaing and his spouse Daw Kyu Kyu Hla have been welcomed with a conventional Russian bread and salt welcoming ceremony as they stepped off the aircraft.
Later, Min Aung Hlaing exuded confidence as he was acquired by Minnikhanov on the latter’s workplace. At a subsequent assembly with representatives of the power firm PJSC Tatneft, adopted by a conventional music live performance and dinner, Min Aung Hlaing couldn’t assist appearing like a baby visiting a zoo, unable to include his satisfaction as being a visitor of the top of state.
In the meantime, his spouse Daw Kyu Kyu Hla was given a tour of Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan, by some army officers’ wives and a few guards. She was given the identical therapy in Moscow.
Final 12 months, Russian president Putin signed a regulation prohibiting the heads of autonomous Russian areas from utilizing the title of president. Minnikhanov was the final one in Russia to make use of the title. On Tuesday, a day earlier than Min Aung Hlaing met Minnikhanov, Putin referred to the Tatar chief with out the title in an official communication. Maybe Min Aung Hlaing was not conscious or pretended to not discover it. However, the junta’s media have been solely too joyful to oblige, repeatedly referring to Minnikhanov as “president of Tatarstan”—an space with fewer than 4 million folks—of their studies and newscasts to save lots of face for his or her boss.
Britain’s prime diplomat in Myanmar pressured out
The Myanmar regime has deepened its diplomatic isolation from the West by expelling the top of the British Embassy in Yangon “for not presenting his credentials to the junta.” Pete Vowles, who has grow to be the primary worldwide envoy to be pressured to depart the nation, was named Britain’s ambassador and took up his appointment in Myanmar in August 2021 however London determined to downgrade Vowles’ title from ambassador to chargé d’affaires advert interim because of the coup and the regime’s atrocities towards its personal folks. After touring to Thailand, the envoy was denied a visa to re-enter Myanmar and stranded within the neighboring nation for months, earlier than being allowed again in late final month.
Vowles tweeted on Wednesday that his time within the nation had come to an abrupt finish, saying “Unhappy & sorry to have been pressured by the junta to depart however glad we didn’t cave to strain to legitimize their brutal coup.” The regime’s Ministry of Overseas Affairs responded on Thursday that Vowles had solely been allowed again into the nation to “gather private belongings” from June 21 to July 15, and left as his visa was about to run out. The ministry mentioned the envoy needed to depart the nation because the Myanmar “authorities” (because the army regime refers to itself) had acted in accordance with diplomatic practices as a sovereign state.
